Stacking up

With supplies getting tight, orders for firewood piling up

"We've been delivering wood since July," said Randy Dryden, owner of The Fireplace Center & Patio Shop. "It's coming in all the time, but we're still getting rid of it faster than it's coming in."

The store gets a few deliveries a week but has a long list of orders to fill, Dryden said.

"We're four to five weeks out on deliveries," he said.

Wood is a labor-intensive product to harvest and haul, said James Cathey, owner of Panhandle Greenhouses.

"There's really just not enough labor out there wanting to do this (harvest)," he said. "We're running out of suppliers slowly."

Suppliers are more frequently opting to sell the same wood closer to home for the same price and save shipping costs made higher by rising diesel prices, Cathey said.

It's no less labor-intensive when it arrives at retailer sites, said Gordon Gabert, owner of Boyd's Equipment.

"Every stick has to be unloaded off the semi, and every stick has to be stacked, and every stick has to be loaded on a trailer (when sold), and every stick has to be taken off the trailer and put on the customer's porch," Gabert said. "That's a lot of handling."

Consumers are paying primarily for the labor when they buy, Dryden said.

"We can't really make any money at it," he said. "And we can offer a cash-and-carry price."

The store's prices range from $265 a cord for oak to $290 a cord for pinon.

Boyd's Equipment sells wood by "face cords," which are smaller. The price of oak and mesquite face cords is $300, with delivery an additional $40, Gabert said.

The Patio Shop charges $300 a cord for oak, including delivery within Amarillo.

"All we have left is oak," Dryden said. "We might have some more cedar later on, or some pine, but it would be pretty much in the same ballpark. The pinon is going for $360, and it's sold out with a waiting list."

Pinon has thus far eluded Gabert.

"I couldn't get it at all," he said.

Demand for pinon has soared, Dryden said.

"Part of that has to do with the advent of a lot of outdoor fireplaces or chimeneas or fire pits," he said. "People are outside burning fires and they want the smell - like they're somewhere else."

Supply this season - and every season - can be further affected by weather, Dryden said.

Soggy weather in Oklahoma, for example, can prevent trucks from picking up harvested wood there for transport, he said.

The steady factor wood retailers can count on, Gabert said, is an increase in customer calls "every time we get a cold snap."

Glossary

Cord: A unit of measure of wood that is equivalent to a stacked pile of round wood 4 feet wide, 8 feet long and 4 feet high. Contains 128 cubic feet of wood and space. May contain approximately 80 to 90 cubic feet of solid wood.

Face cord: A unit of measure of wood that is equivalent to a pile of round wood 8 feet long and 4 feet high and of variable width, commonly the width of the finished product. For example, if the face cord was firewood, its width might be 12, 16, 18 or 24 inches. Face cords are never wider than a standard cord of 4 feet.

Seasoned wood: Wood that has dried since cutting. It burns better than green, or freshly cut, wood.

Hard wood: Hardwood as opposed to softwood is a relative term. Hardwoods are generally defined as the woods of deciduous trees, which are trees that shed their leaves in the winter. However, some hardwoods don't. Moreover, some hardwoods are softer than some softwoods. To confound the situation, the group is divided into hard hardwoods; oak, ash, hickory are examples, and soft hardwoods such as elm, cottonwood, willow, soft maple and so forth. Hard woods burn longer, meaning they're better for providing heat.

Soft woods: Generally considered to be the wood of conifers, although the wood of some conifers is harder than that of some hardwoods. See the definition of hardwood for a further explanation. Soft woods, such as pinon and mesquite, burn more quickly. Adding some soft wood to your fire can help the hard wood catch fire faster.

Smart firewood shopper: The shopper who buys early. Some store owners suggested buying wood as much as a year in advance so it is a) available, and b) seasoned when cold weather hits.